Oh No! Powers filed a 3856v instead of a 3462-B!!! - Updated
Obviously, his campaign is toast!
Seriously, come on, people. (And by people, I basically mean his opponents, and anyone in the press inflating this story to more than it is.) I’m just coming back online after a few days on vacation, but it seems to me that this is the upshot:
Until they create a TurboTax equivalent for doing a campaign’s finances, I’m willing to cut some slack for a campaign that incorrectly categorizes <1% of the money they’ve raised and spent. As long as they correct the mistake when it’s found, no harm, no foul.
Let he who has tried to fill out their tax forms on their own, and not made a similar mistake, cast the first stone. And yeah, you probably did make smallish mistakes, but were too small a fish to fry for the IRS to care.
The fact that Powers’ opponents only have THIS to jump on indicates a the relative weakness of their campaigns. Maybe when you’re super-rich you can hire a CPA to do the filing, but I’m sure Powers’ multitude of small donors would prefer their money be used to you know, actually win or something. Call me crazy.
Update: someone wrote to let me know that those forms I mention in the title of this article are incorrect. I’m not surprised, I totally made them up to illustrate the silliness of this whole story.  Anyone see Letterman’s top 10 list from 4/15?
Top Ten Reasons I Like Being An Accountant
…
3. “When some idiot asks me about a form 8038-G information return for tax-exempt governmental obligation, when they really mean a form 1038-R recovery of overpayment under arbitrage rebate provisions — that s***’s hilarious!”
I put this Powers story in the same category of importance.
Great post.
I thought it was interesting that the D&C headline on this story was “Candidate Cited for Finance Violation.” Didn’t his campaign notice it and voluntarily refund the money?
BTW, there is a TurboTax for campaign finance filings, it’s made by a software company called “Aristotole”, it’s expensive, and most campaigns use it. Also, campaigns regularly file updated/modified campaign finance reports. Like taxes, the rules are complex and errors are common.